Addressing concerns about child maltreatment in schools: A brief research report on social work involvement in reporting processes

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: School-based social workers (SWiS) in Aotearoa New Zealand work alongside teachers and principals to improve child wellbeing. The SWiS experience in addressing concerns about possible child abuse and neglect (CAN) is under-researched.METHOD: In the first phase of the project, the authors undertook semi-structured interviews with 20 SWiS to explore their experiences of how school professionals addressed CAN.FINDINGS: Some considerable variation in making formal notifications of concerns to the statutory agency was found. In some schools SWiS made all the notifications, in others none, and in some schools the process was variable. Stigma associated with child abuse was reported as a factor in attitudes towards reporting. School-based social workers reported the need for better education and policy to guide schools to address CAN.IMPLICATIONS: More joint education is needed to ensure a common knowledge base and better interprofessional work. There is potential for SWiS to support this work if better resourced.

Revictimization Risk Factors Following Childhood Maltreatment: A Literature Review

“…In the United States, specifically, 677,529 children were victims of substantiated maltreatment in 2018 alone (Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS], 2020), and comparable rates are found in other Western countries (for a review, see Moody et al, 2018). While this number is staggering, the rates of maltreatment are underestimated (Fang et al, 2012), partially due to relying solely on the report from either the caregiver or the child (Finkelhor et al, 2015) and concerns about the consequences of disclosure (Beddoe & De Haan, 2018). Maltreatment is related to a host of negative outcomes across the lifespan, including a greater risk for depression, anxiety, emotion dysregulation, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance misuse (Fang et al, 2012;Pratchett & Yehuda, 2011;Young & Widom, 2014), as well as smaller brain volumes (Spies et al, 2016), lower IQ and academic difficulties (Cowell et al, 2015), and behavioral problems (Howell et al, 2016).…”

‘If you could change two things’: Social workers in schools talk about what could improve schools' responses to child abuse and neglect

“…Differences have been noted about what constituted reporting (social workers rated informal conversations as an example of this but administrators did not), and the desirable level of parental involvement (Bye, Shepard, Partridge, & Alvarez, 2009). As the authors have noted elsewhere (Beddoe & De Haan, 2018), in New Zealand considerable variation in the role of making formal notifications of concerns has been reported. In some schools, SWiS made all the notifications, in others, none, while others were inconsistent in their processes.…”

“…Participants believed it to be vital that school professionals understood the significant differences between what statutory social workers and SWiS can do in child protection. Reports of concern processes and outcomes were sometimes a source of conflict (reported in more detail in Beddoe and de Haan, 2018).…”

Revisiting social workers in schools (SWIS) – making the case for safeguarding in context and the potential for reach

“…In New Zealand, SWIS was an attempt to turnaround the deep distrust felt by indigenous communities with good quality, responsive social work (Wilson et al , 2018). Here, SWIS offered a non-threatening point of contact to address the perennial issue with social work is stigma and fear, in that “the biggest shadow SWIS carry around is being a social worker” (Beddoe and De Haan, 2018, p. 63). New Zealand claims to exemplify the broadest model of SWIS (Gray and Urbanová and Collins, 2020), with evidence of authentic community engagement, where efforts were seen as sincere and meaningful.…”